Collective bargaining agreements are documents used by unionized workers to outline the scope of their job role and in many educational settings are perceived as a hindrance to improving teacher quality and thus student performance. The problem addressed by this study was that the restrictions of the collective bargaining agreement impede the time…

The Coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted various aspects of life, including education. This mixed-method study examines the effects of the pandemic on general interest in STEM lessons, the development and application of STEM soft skills, and observations of signs of trauma in urban classrooms. The foundation of this study is the…

Internationally, there is a gap in high-school completion rates for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. In Australia, gap estimates are commonly based on lag indicators, precluding examination of underlying mechanisms. Using two longitudinal representative samples of Australian youth, we explored differences in high-school completion between…

The positive development of migrant children in China is hampered due to their unequal accessibility to quality urban education resources. This research aimed at exploring the developmental trajectories of migrant and urban children's literacy and mathematics performance, as well as the impact of family socioeconomic status (SES) and parenting…

Despite increasing interest in improving academic outcomes for students by enhancing mindfulness, there is a paucity of evidence that greater mindfulness is associated with success in school. We measured mindfulness with the short-form Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) in over 2,000 urban students in Grades 5-8. The MAAS had good internal…

With ongoing underrepresentation of women in STEM fields, it is necessary to explore ways to maintain girls' STEM interest throughout elementary and middle school. This study is situated within the context of Designs in STEM (pseudonym), an out-of-school program that engages urban youth in authentic STEM experiences. Participants were 30 girls…

Educational scholars have argued that poverty can hamper student achievement. In this critical discussion paper, we provide a historiography of how urban poverty increased in America over the last 30 years of the 20th century. We contend that educators and educational researchers working in P-12 urban schools should understand how federal urban…

The main objective of this qualitative case study was to examine the perceptions of secondary school principal's effectiveness and its perceived effect on student outcomes. This study focused on the collected data of teachers' perceptions and the leadership style of principals. This is essential to understand teachers' perceptions and a principal…

Oftentimes, when people hear the term posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), they automatically associate this disorder with soldiers who are returning from combat. However, school psychologists and other mental health professionals know differently. PTSD is a disorder that is not just limited to those returning from war, but it is a disorder that…

This article looks at the American Dream as a merit narrative to understand how it supports barriers to educational success for educators working to improve the lives of students in urban schools. Hard work/perseverance and individualism are interrogated as components of merit narratives used to sustain the American Dream. We analyze data from six…

When it comes to higher education, finding the right school is only one obstacle in the lives of most African-American males. Studies show that even out of the number of enrolled African-American males in the nation, about one-third of them will actually complete an undergraduate degree. A lack of experience in higher education may affect the…

This study examines the relationship between athletics, athletic leadership, and academic achievement. This is likely to be a tricky issue as athletes and athletic leaders are not likely to be a random group of students. To address this issue I control for school fixed effects and instrument the endogenous variables with height. I find that…

The researcher investigated the achievement of third- and fifth-grade urban African American students who attended science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), Non-STEM, and Theme Title I schools in science and mathematics on the 2015 Georgia Milestones Assessment. The researcher used data from 29 Non-STEM, 14 STEM, and 10 Theme…

The academic achievement rates of urban Latino students are significantly lower than those of non-minority youth. To date, most of the research on this topic has focused on learning and motivational characteristics of underrepresented youth in elementary and middle school and much less on urban high schools. This study investigated variables…

An extensive literature demonstrates the relationship between academic self-concept and academic achievement, but the relationship between "non"-academic subdomains of the self and academic success in children and adolescents remains less clear. The current study examined longitudinal associations between social and behavioral…